Band of Gypsys (30 page)

‘I found out something about the ghost,’ she announced, signalling for her beef to be removed untouched. ‘The ghost in our red room? It was in a memoir in our library.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘There was a young woman who lived here in the nineteen fifties. She was playing with an ouija board, although she’d been warned not to, and she conjured up something that evil that withered her soul. So then she died and she’s been trapped in that room ever since, getting more and more crazy.’

‘Rough.’

The staff who worked inside the Moon and Stars suite were carefully chosen. Their loyalty was to Lady Anne, Wallingham, and
possibly
the Prime Minister. If they’d been given their choice of dolls they’d have preferred Jordan and Milly Preston: such a handsome, docile couple. They considered Ax tainted, and Fiorinda ungrateful, cold, and too intelligent: which isn’t what people want in their royals. But they believed in the ghost, and they didn’t like it. They’d been overheard telling each other that the red chamber had always been haunted, by the legendary Black Shape, and you mustn’t let it touch you… Ax saw the eyes shifting, felt the frisson passing him, and grinned malignly. Stick it to them, Fio.

‘D’you think we should change bedrooms?’

Fiorinda shrugged.

‘You don’t think it will harm us?’

She raised her hollow grey eyes, and smiled like ice at the girl presenting another dish. ‘No, thank you… Not
us
, we’re untouchable. Think who we are. Other people, yes. It might well.’

A card game, on Monday night. Ax and Fiorinda crosslegged on the floor of the red chamber, two lonely royal children locked up and forgotten in the haunted room.

‘D’you remember the Armada Concert?’

‘What about it?’

‘The end of the Rock the Boat tour. We were doing the gig in a derelict kiddies’ theme park in Cleethorpes… Are sevens transparent?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you’re picking up again, sorry.’

‘Fuck.’ Ax arranged a massive influx of pasteboard. ‘These cards are getting old…
Pleasure
Island
, yeah, I remember. Horrible dangerous dump.’

‘Oh? I liked it. It was so odd, colourful and dreamlike, and the rides the hippies got working were insane. Tom had just been killed, but that’s not what I’m remembering. I’m remembering a moment when I met you, on a falling-apart theme-park “Mediaeval” street. I had armed guards round me, for the first time. Just like a big celebrity eh? But it wasn’t like that.’

‘No,’ said Ax, ‘Your turn, babe… It was more serious.’

Fiorinda picked up. ‘You had the armed guards too, but
you
, you fucking looked armed yourself, although you weren’t. Hahaha, but I can put them all straight down again, sorry. Anyone could see you had killed people, well, of course, everyone knew you had, up in Yorkshire.’

‘Thanks. I love it when people look at me and see a killer. I looked at you, you looked at me, an’ the backstage crowd looked at us. Yeah, I know the moment you mean.’

‘That’s when we saw that
this
would happen,’ said Fiorinda.

A hush of awe, that closes like a fist over the young man of twenty-eight and the eighteen year old girl, in the nervous hour before they face a dangerous crowd. Any one of those big, violent concerts in Boat People summer could have been the same. When a nation was tearing itself apart, they had chosen not to be celebrity-cattle. They had chosen to make a stand, to hold things together, to protect the poor. They had known, as early as Boat People Summer, that in the end their choice would bring them somewhere like here. To this dank room, the smell of dust, the deathly silence. You can’t call those moments of realisation ‘seeing the future’, it’s not the future.

When we were there, we were here.

Fiorinda uncovered her three concealed cards for the end game. Ax sighed, he was losing badly. ‘Sage wasn’t with us, was he?’

‘No, he came and found us later, in the storm shelter.’

‘Oh yeah, I remember.’ He looked up from his sorry hand, and smiled at her. ‘You know, I
know
there was a time when we were together and he wasn’t our lover. He was your big brother, best friend, and—’

‘Your best mate, who used to be your big NME feud enemy.’

‘Not
enemy,
Fiorinda
—’

‘Hohoho. You just hated his-a steenking crowd-pulling guts.’

‘Anyway, I was saying… I
can’t remember it
. Literally. I think of us, Sage is there. If I think of us in the past, he must have been there. In bed, whatever, and if he wasn’t, he must have just popped out for—’

Fiorinda put down her cards, face up. ‘I’ve won, let’s stop. Please.’

They held each other’s hands: desolate and terrified, crouched on the dusty golden briars, in a slew of worn, greasy playing cards.

Suffering in public is a hell only for pride. Celebrity cattle are humble creatures, who will scream and flail for the cameras, and feel no pain. Ax watched Fiorinda’s contained agony for as long as he could bear it; which wasn’t long. On Tuesday he requested an interview with Lady Anne, a request which was granted immediately. A startling change. He was escorted (it was strange to see new parts of the house, to have glimpses of the outdoors through unshuttered windows), to a fine set of rooms, though not one of the great showcase suites; with leaded windows over the south lawns.

The old lady had favoured alpha female business suits whenever he’d met her before. In her private study she wore a floor-length gown in pillar box red, with blue slashed sleeves, her meagre hair covered by a close fitting red cap. She was standing when Ax walked in, gnarled hands clasped over a big chatelaine of decorative keys. He thought of Rox, grown old and shrunken: but Lady Anne was not beyond gender. Somehow made sure you knew she was female. She curtsied, and then remained standing when Ax sat down.

‘Please.’ He released her with a gesture, thinking of the Mediaevalists in Paris, the fatal conviction you get that these people are so far out they’re laughable. Oh no, they’re crazy as bedbugs, but they’re sharp enough.

She was a parched little mummy inside the lobster carapace: he could have broken her in half. But that’s the werewolf talking.

Lady Anne took a chair. There were no attendants in sight, he’d asked for a private interview and this seemed to have been respected. She embarked on a speech of greeting, before he could forestall her. He sat it out politely and asked if she had any news. A wary look flickered over her face and was gone: no, there was no news. As soon as there was anything to report she would relay it without delay.

‘Bill Trevor and George Merrick didn’t turn up at the Drawing Room for the show,’ said Ax. ‘It was from Battersea Reach that he disappeared. I’d like to speak to them. Could you get hold of them for me?’

Lady Anne looked as vague as was possible for the tough old bitch. ‘I
believe
it’s been decided that Mr Trevor and Mr Merrick should not visit or communicate with Wallingham, for the moment. For security reasons.’

‘I see.’

Oh, fuck. What’s happened to the Heads?

‘We don’t know
why
Mr Pender disappeared, and that makes, well—’

The vague smile and the wary eyes. He realised that she was afraid he knew the truth, by telepathy. Wolfman here could be playing games with her, knowing all along just what was happening to his boyfriend. I did not know for sure, thought Ax. Not absolutely sure. But I do now. I know enough, God help me. He stood up, went to the windows and looked out over the drowsy gardens, the tank trap; the tree-dotted park.

Allah Akbar.

‘These “expiatory rites”, that were mentioned at the beginning of our stay here? I’d like to know more about that.’

He knew the painless lethal injection wouldn’t be enough. If the king’s going to die you want some TA-DA!, about it. Some wicked fancywork. But he could taste the fanaticism in this woman., and she wasn’t alone. If he offered his royal self, in trade for a dirty lab-science superweapon (who was refusing to co-operate, obviously), he knew where Lady Anne’s vote would be. He could divide the bastards, at least. What will they do to me?

Late summer sunshine on the lime trees by the croquet lawn, and a shocked silence behind him.

‘Your Majesty.’

Ax turned, feeling that his face was a mask and he was looking through the eyeholes. Lady Anne was on her feet, totally disconcerted. Were those
tears
, brimming in her sunken old eyes?

‘Your Majesty. In…in advance of the formal announcement, which Lord Mursal plans to make very soon… I must tell you that by many signs, we are now blessedly sure that there was not the slightest hint of lycanthropy. I am preparing new arrangements for Your Majesty’s accommodation, very gladly. Whatever happened—we may never know—no blame attaches to Your Majesty! The blow, if there was a blow, was a king’s perquisite, your outrage was just, Lord Vries will beg your forgiveness for the—’

Ax was bathed in a craven wash of relief: this animal does not want to die in extended agony. But now he had nothing to trade. All he could do was stare her down, trying to figure out the new position.

‘Lord Vries is alive! I’m glad to hear it. Where is he?’

‘Lord Vries has recovered sufficiently to return to his duties. He is hesitant, perhaps
unduly
hesitant, to seek an audience with Your Majesty.’

Lady Anne drew a breath, having revealed this whacking faultline. Her old face glowed. ‘But soon all will be well. The Lord and Lady will rule, from Wallingham, under my watch and ward. Mr Pender will serve his country in his own way. All will be well in England, all manner of thing will be well.’

She went down again, foundering in her heavy skirts like a ship hitting rock, into a deep reverence, her old back ramrod straight, her eyes filled with misty exaltation. Yep: tears. Tears of actual joy, he thought. His skin crept.

‘Well, this is a great day,’ he said, coolly, when he thought the pause was long enough (fucking hope that stunt murders her sciatica). ‘I hope the salving of my reputation is a good omen, and that we’ll be hearing from Mr Pender soon. I’d like to call Joss, and give him the good news, could you arrange that? You know, our lack of private telecoms is a problem.’

Lady Anne rose up, unembarrassed. ‘Any news will be relayed to Your Majesty at once.’ She didn’t seem to have heard the part about private telecoms.

In the red room Fiorinda was working at her embroidery. She’d requested the materials some time ago, to make a change from reading. It frightened him to see her like that. He was responsible, he had thrown her back into a world of chattel gentlewomen, stitching pretty flowers because they weren’t allowed to do anything else. But she was a long way from using handicrafts as satire now. You have to do something: preferably something painstaking, that helps you to give nothing away.

‘What did Lady Anne say?’

He had been on the brink of horrors, and felt immeasurably shaken. ‘I’m not sure… I mean, I know what she said, but I don’t know how much I’m reading into it. But I think Sage is okay. I feel as if I have reason to hope.’

Fiorinda paid attention to her satin stitch, frowning a little.

‘In words?’

‘As soon as she has news, we will have it. Bill and George won’t be coming to the club for the moment, for security reasons… And I’m not a werewolf any more. Not suspected of being a werewolf, I mean. I’ve been cleared, don’t ask me how. Lady Anne was about to inform us, my request for an interview forestalled her.’

It was a turning point in their affairs. Lady Anne came to visit them, with ceremony. She repeated the joyful tidings, and when asked about Sage spoke in veiled terms about
matters
, which would soon be resolved. They were presented (another of those silver trays, offered by Lady Anne’s favourite senior womanservant) with the internal keys of the fortress.

The keys were meaningless. They unlocked the outer door to the Moon and Stars suite, which was always guarded, and bolted and barred on the outside every night—and some public rooms that were never locked anyway. The freedom to roam was genuine. They were escorted into the gardens: by guards who saluted them with reverence. They felt the sun, they saw daylight and growing things, they breathed fresh air. When they returned indoors, they were taken to a drawing room, on the same floor as the Moon and Stars but in a different world—where tea was served by servants who were nothing like the screws in their prison. Later, they were escorted back to rooms that had been scrubbed and burnished, worn bedlinen and towels replaced by far superior articles; the rich colours of the hangings and carpets glowing, the air scented with bergamot and vanilla. Around midnight the antique mobile phone was brought for Ax, same routine as before.

Ax thought it would be Joss, and it still might be bad news.

‘Hi, Ax.’

‘
Sage!
’

Fiorinda was beside him in the antechamber. Her eyes shone, he gave her the phone.

‘Where are you, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, my brat, relax. Look, I’m sorry you’ve been anxious, but I can’t come back yet, it’ll be a while longer. Is Ax still there?’

‘I’m here, I’m still here—’

‘Are things better for you by now? They should be.’

They clung to the handset together, their cheeks touching. Sage’s voice was tired, calm, cheerful: obscurely more convincing because they couldn’t see his face. ‘Yes,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Things are better, I wouldn’t say they’re good, but m-materially improved: and you? How about you? Can you talk?’

‘Yeah, yeah, I can talk. I’m going to get you out. Got to go now.’

‘Can we talk to you again? Sage!’

‘Soon, so just relax, stick with it. This is good, everything’s okay.’

The phone was dead.

‘He didn’t mention your not being a werewolf,’ said Fiorinda.

‘Maybe he doesn’t know.’

On Thursday night, Rick’s Place had been reprogrammed too. The transformation was subtle, presumably because as yet there had been no official announcement: but the guards who took them through the house had a different attitude. The burly ‘waiters’ who had followed them around the night club floor, officiously close, were replaced, in the take-the-bullet space, by gilded scions of the new ruling class. These young men didn’t introduce themselves but acted very respectful. They imagined newsflash headlines PRESIDENT AX EXONERATED! TO BE CROWNED KING!